Description:

This young woman is a bit on the petite side. Shorter, and quite slim, it almost looks as if she could snap in half at any moment. Despite her small stature, she's well-proportioned, with smooth, eerily flawless cream-colored skin. There are a few faded scars here and there from childhood romps, but nothing that would draw attention unless one were examining her very closely. The shape of her head vaguely resembles an egg, with the point at her small chin. Full lips, usually only covered with a bit of gloss, are set beneath a smallish nose. But most noticeably are her large brown eyes. Tilted up at the edges, her eyes are another indication of her Asian heritage. They are almond-shaped, but unusually wide, framed by long lashes, and usually are made up a bit with liner and mascara to accentuate them. Topping off her 5' 4" tall frame, is long, chocolate-brown hair which reaches mid-back, while bangs sweep across her forehead.

At the moment, Emiko is wearing a simple outfit. The white shirt she wears has pearl-esque buttons, with a mandarin collar and a little bit of flowery embroidery on it that's echoed around the buttons that close the slim sleeves at her wrists. The shirt itself is relatively fitted, and tucked into a pair of tan pants. The pants seem to be of a soft material, cargo pockets on her thighs so she can hold varous things without a full-on, huge purse. Black boots cover her feet, protecting them not only from the cold, but from the wet slush of the winter season. Over the white shirt, she also has a red, embroidered jacket that looks much more Asian in design. And over the entire outfit she has black trenchcoat, which has a stiff collar, and much celtic knotwork imprinted onto it. There's no color to it, the imprint only seen by how the light hits it. Fitted closely, it buttons from her hips to her neck, sleeves falling to the first knuckes of her fingers, and the hem falling to 6 inches or so above the ground, so it doesn't scrape the ground when she walks.

Powers:

Emiko is a hydrokinetic. That is, she can telekinetically control water. This only applies to water in its liquid state. She cannot turn it into ice, or into steam or gas. While she may be able to control mist, that's different as it's individual droplets of water, and not a gaseous form. Likewise, she cannot control water in an ice form, so someone like Bobby could easily prevent her from using her powers. The other drawback is that, like Pyro, she can't /create/ water. She can control it to a certain extent, but not create it.

At the moment, Emiko is limited to water she can see and touch. Though she can 'sense' where water is, which may come in handy if she were in a desert, but otherwise it's rather easy where to find water. This is only something she can do if she concentrates, it's not like radar, it's not on all the time.

At the moment, Emiko's max is two liters of water, for about twenty minutes. She can manipulate its shape, make it fly around without dripping, etc. While at first touch it might seem to have a firm outside, it wouldn't be hard to poke something like a finger through it, and depending on if Emiko was anticipating it or not, it could break her
concentration and cause it to fall.

The only water she can control at the moment is just that, water. She cannot rip water out of a person's body, nor will she ever be likely to be able to. However, due to the amounts of water in things like soda, she can likely lift up cans and bottles to use them as projectiles if she had to. She hasn't ever attempted this, however. Also, throwing cans would be much easier than throwing any sort of bottles, since they are smaller and contain less water, therefore easier for her to control.

Eventually, she may be able to transport herself on a boogie-board or surfboard-type plank of water, but as that would require much more concentration and a great deal of water, that won't be happening for a long while. Eventually she may also be able to control enough water that she could encase a person in a ball of water (ala Harry Potter & The Order of the Phoenix). But again, since this would take so much water, it's a long ways off.

A ball of water snowball sized would be relatively easy for Emiko to manipulate, and if it wasn't in any complicated shape, she could probably mess with it for a good hour continuously. Any longer than that, and she'll get a sharp, throbbing headache that resembles a migraine in that she needs medicine, and a dark room to make her really feel better.

History:

Emiko, like her parents, was born and raised in the US. Though she learned Japanese growing up, and some Chinese, English was her native language. Her father started out working as a bellhop for World Hotel when he was a teenager. Unlike many teens, he managed to keep the position, working his way up through the ranks until he became manager a short while before Emiko was born. Her mother was always more of a homemaker type, but she loved to make things. Knitting as a hobby, making some clothing for her young daughter. But mostly what she was known for was her ability to make almost flawless alterations. There were some dry cleaners and such that could do alterations, but Emiko's mother got a reputation for doing it faster and better. She had little else to do, taking on some cleaning jobs as well, for those that didn't trust dry cleaners with older clothes.

Growing up, Emiko was a relatively normal girl. She was enrolled in ballet when she went through that phase, then gymnastics, but then she started to be more interested in books, and history. It started with her own history, where she came from, the history of her ancestors, and then it spread out to other histories. Soon she was obsessed with it almost. When she was 15, she learned about Rennaisance Faires from one of her friends, thinking it would be fun to dress up and go to one. Having had clothes made for her by her mother, and having often watched her when she made those clothes, Emiko decided to try her hand at it. It took a few tries to get everything right, but Emiko found that unlike anything she was doing in school, making her first outfit gave her a sense of accomplishment and fulfillment. And so that August, she went to her first Ren Faire. Seeing all the stalls where people were selling their items, Emiko was rather hooked. After that, she became even more voracious in her reading and research, finding patterns and testing them out. By the time next July came around, she had quite a few outfits in different sizes, having managed to make them a bit cheaper than the ones she saw at the faire the previous years, using authentic fabrics and not just ones that looked good.

Contacting the people who ran the faire, she managed to have saved up enough to get a small booth on the outskirt of the merchants' area. It was put under her mother's name, and her mother accompanied her, though for the most part sat back and merely helped keep an eye on things. By the end of the week that she had signed up for, all her clothing was sold. Though she had earned the ire of some of the other clothing merchants who were trying to charge more for their wares, and didn't like a young girl like her infringing on their territory, as it were (despite her mother being there). But Emiko was ecstatic. And she set her sights high. Upon getting back to school, she convinced a friend of hers to help her make a website, loading up photos she ahd taken of outfits, putting prices, approximate production times, etc. Surprisingly she seemed to find a rather good niche. And while it took a bit for the online part to really take off, she continued to go to faires and sell the clothing she was able to make, thankfully with the assistance of her mother.

The one condition her parents had for this, was that she wouldn't neglect her schoolwork, and she never did, even if she stayed up later with a sewing machine she had gotten for her birthday. Her room started to resemble a seamstress' shop more than the room of a normal female teen. She even started making some clothing for herself, though more in what she developed into her own style, not modern, not Renaissance, but incoporating some of each sometimes.

When she turned 16, it was a particularly dreary, rainy day. Her father was at work at the hotel, her mother was out running errands so she could get some work done as well, leaving Emiko at home, sitting on their back stoop under an awning, rather bored. The awning leaked, leaving a small puddle beside her foot. Slowly, out of the puddle formed a small man out of water, looking rather like a gingerbread man and about the same size. He started marching around, saluting, doing cartwheels, basically just entertaining Emiko. It was like it had a mind of its own, until Emiko realized that it was only doing things she thought of. Unfortunately it only lasted about five minutes, leaving Emiko with a strong headache. However, after this she became intrigued, having heard about mutants and the like from the TV and her parents' conversations. SO she started experimenting, every day along with her homework, she would try something with water. At first it was just levitating little globs, then advancing to squares and more and more complex shapes. Mostly these sessions didn't last more than fifteen minutes, to just when she started to feel a headache coming on. But over the years, she became able to do more and more with the water. Luckily water is easy to come by, from puddles, faucets, bottles, etc.

During this time, her website started to do better and better, earning Emiko as much money as a minimum wage job. And as people who received her goods or took her homemade business cards from Ren Faires told their friends, or people they knew, her little business grew. She never stressed herself out over it, though, keeping in touch with customers to let them know of the progress, and if they lived close enough to her, she would even do fittings, under the careful supervision of her mother, of course.

When it came time for her to choose a college, and a major, or a college at all, she chose to stay close to home by going to the City College of New York. Her scholarships more than covered it, allowing her to rent a second-story apartment above a shop not far from her parents in Chinatown, with the money she saved up and some left over from her scholarships. She wanted the apartment so she could continue making clothes, and just be away from her parents, where she can also experiment with her abilities. Now, finishing up her Freshman year in college as a History major, she's getting relatively good grades and continuing to work on her clothing.

The events of Liberty Island surely shocked her when they happened, especially being so close to home, though she didn't actually see anything, she did see it on the news. Now, more than ever, she's almost afraid of telling anyone about being a mutant, not wanting to be grouped in with Magneto and the like.